Success Dooms Foreclosure Defense Lawyers: Homeowners Denied Access to the Court

THE NEIL GARFIELD SHOW

It is now virtually impossible to find a lawyer who will accept an engagement to defend a foreclosure regardless of the financial ability of the prospective client to pay fees. The unconstitutional chilling effect on lawyers and homeowners is obvious. Lawyers and homeowners have been chased away from defending foreclosure claims that are unfounded, illegal and fraudulent. And the reason is simple: lawyers who are consistently successful at defending foreclosures are targeted with disciplinary actions, punishments and civil actions that either directly or indirectly bar them from ever representing or soliciting a client for foreclosure defense litigation. It's not difficult to identify the beneficiary of this phenomenon: it's the Wall Street investment banks that are falsely claiming to have securitized transactions with homeowners that are falsely represented and labeled as loans. They get the money proceeds from forced sales of homesteads and they don't distribute it to anyone who paid value for entry into the securitization scheme. I have been a litigator for 45 years. During that time I have also written workbooks on and given CLE seminars to lawyers across the country on various topics relating to business litigation foreclosure, evidence, discovery and expert testimony. I have never seen a situation like this, created entirely by overreaching of state bar grievance procedures and civil actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission and State AG offices under cover of preventing fraudulent "foreclosure rescue" scams. They have even come after me, repeatedly but because of my experience in defending administrative actions, they were largely unsuccessful.